News in Briefs: A National Roundup

Chicago Schools to Boost Math, Science Instruction

The Chicago public schools have launched a $24.5 million project to
improve and expand the amount of mathematics and science taught in the
district.

Elementary school students will study mathematics for an hour a day,
or an additional 20 minutes of instruction, and will learn science for
150 minutes per week, an increase of 30 minutes.

At the high school level, the 437,000-student district will offer
extra time for students struggling with math and will create
accelerated programs for others.

The district also will invest $10 million in the next year to
renovate aging science labs. It will be the first step in a $120
million project to improve 400 labs in the city.

The math and science effort follows an 18-month-old effort to raise
the quality of reading instruction in the school system, Barbara
Eason-Watkins, the district's chief education officer, said in
announcing the new project last week."If you can't read, you can't
learn," Ms. Eason-Watkins said in a statement. "It's time to build on
that foundation, because if you don't know math and science, you can't
get a job."

The district also will subsidize the tuition of current middle
school teachers seeking to become accredited to teach math and
science.

—David J. Hoff

Principal, Teachers Suspended In Probe of Discipline Approach

A Kansas City, Mo., principal and two teachers have been suspended
with pay as school district and state officials investigate allegations
that students were bound to their chairs with tape.

After receiving a call to its child-abuse hotline early this month,
the Missouri Division of Family Services began investigating the
alleged incident at Pitcher Elementary School. District officials also
are conducting their own investigation.

A spokesman for the 30,000-student district said the school
employees would not return to work until the investigations were
resolved.

"The district is still investigating the incident," Edwin Birch
said. "The employees are accused of inappropriate discipline of
students."

—Lisa Fine Goldstein

Lead Worry Prompts Shutoff Of School Drinking Fountains

All of the water fountains in the 95,000-student Baltimore school
district have been turned off after the school board received a report
showing that many were tainted with lead.

The father of a Baltimore student who suffered from lead-based
poisoning in the 1990s visited about a dozen schools that were
identified as having drinking fountains contaminated with lead a decade
ago and found many were still operating.

In response, district officials ordered that all fountains be shut
off. Water coolers are to be placed in all schools by the end of this
month, officials said.

—John Gehring

Ethics Panel Drops Case Against Georgia Teacher

The Georgia Professional Standards Commission has dropped its case
against a Gwinnett County elementary school teacher who posted
questions from the district's controversial Gateway test on the
Internet.

The commission was seeking to have James Hope's teaching license
suspended, arguing that he violated the state's code of ethics for
teachers because he posted the questions in 2000 after signing an
agreement not to disclose any part of the test.

A critic of the Gateway exam, Mr. Hope argued that the test was
poorly written.

The commission had asked the state's court of appeals to hear the
case, but the court declined earlier this month. The commission decided
against asking the state supreme court to take up the case, because it
was likely that it would refuse.

Mr. Hope's lawyer had argued that the test was a public record,
therefore making the confidentiality agreement illegal.

—Linda Jacobson

Colo. District Gets Loans To Sort Out Budget Mess

Colorado's state treasurer has approved the last of a series of
state loans that will let the St. Vrain Valley schools begin to recover
from dire financial straits allegedly caused by serious fiscal
mismanagement.

A $1 million, interest-free loan approved this month brings the
total amount of state advances to the district this fiscal year to $27
million.

The sprawling district, which serves 22,000 students in 13
communities, has been reeling since last November, when officials
discovered a nearly $14 million hole in the system's $122 million
budget.

The revelation has prompted the resignation of district
administrators, calls for state intervention in the system's
governance, and an investigation by the Boulder County district
attorney. ("Budget Errors
Leave Schools Feeling Pinch," Jan. 8, 2003.)

To get the state loans, district leaders had to present a
comprehensive strategy for putting the system back on a more solid
financial footing. The district's recovery plan has resulted in cuts to
programs and salaries.

—Jeff Archer

Mo. Firm Calls Halt to Rewards For Student Attendance

An international marketing firm has announced plans to end its
long-running program to encourage good attendance in the St. Louis
public schools.

Maritz Inc., based in Fenton, Mo., had operated the program in the
43,500-student district since 1989, awarding such prizes as baseball
tickets, T-shirts, and a big-screen television set for good
attendance.

Representatives from Maritz could not be reached for comment.

But Rebecca Rodgers, a spokeswoman for the district, said Thomas N.
Tener, Maritz's vice president of community affairs and organizational
development, had cited turnover in the district's leadership as its
reason for ending the program in a letter to Superintendent Cleveland
Hammonds Jr.

Voters in St. Louis will elect four of seven school board members in
April, and Mr. Hammonds has announced plans to retire on June 30.

The letter also mentioned that the company looked forward to working
with the new board members and superintendent in the future, Ms.
Rodgers said.

—Michelle Galley

Detroit Mayor Replaces Four School Board Members

Roughly a year after becoming the mayor of Detroit, Kwame M.
Kilpatrick is shuffling the membership of the city's school board,
which could lead to a more active appointed board.

The Michigan legislature handed control of the 168,000-student
district to then-Mayor Dennis W. Archer in 1999. Six members of the
seven-member school board are appointed by the mayor, with the state
superintendent or his designee serving as the other member.

The board's main task is the appointment of the district's chief
executive officer, who is responsible for day-to-day decisions.

But in his State of the City Address on Feb. 12, Mayor Kilpatrick, a
Democrat, said he wanted the new board members to become advocates for
improved parental involvement, to approve any contract of $250,000 or
more, to seek new community-based partnerships, and to lobby for better
in-service training for teachers.

Mr. Kilpatrick also said all new board members must be residents of
Detroit; some former board members lived outside the city. Only one
member appointed by Mayor Archer will return: Gerald Smith, the
president of the Detroit Youth Foundation.

The new members include a former mayoral candidate, a former state
representative, and the founder of a nonprofit program for youths. One
seat remains vacant.

—Karla Scoon Reid

Would-Be Candidates Barred From St. Louis Board Election

Candidates for the St. Louis school board cannot have relatives on
the school system's payroll, a judge has ruled.

Cole County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Brown on Feb. 13 shot down a
challenge by a group of residents who argued that their applications to
be candidates in the April 8 school board election had been unfairly
denied.

The decision upholds an anti-nepotism law, in effect since 1998,
that is part of legislation settling St. Louis' school desegregation
case.

The three residents had contended the law was unfair because it did
not work both ways: Relatives of school board members were not
prohibited from getting jobs with the 43,500-student school system.

—Lisa Fine Goldstein

Texas High School Cancels Visit From Sharpton After Threats

A high school in Corpus Christi, Texas, decided to cancel a planned
appearance by the Rev. Al Sharpton for Black History Month after
receiving threats.

The visit to Miller High School, scheduled for Feb. 14, was scrapped
for safety reasons. But Mr. Sharpton, a civil rights activist who is
eyeing a run for president, spoke instead at a nearby church the
following day, according to information on the Web site of the National
Action Network. Mr. Sharpton founded the New York City-based civil
rights organization.

The Web site said that Jesus H. Chavez, the superintendent of the
38,700-student Corpus Christi district, canceled Mr. Sharpton's visit,
citing complaints and threats from the local Ku Klux Klan.

District officials did not return calls for comment.

A school district spokesman told the Associated Press, however, that
the district's central office had received bomb threats and threats of
shootings and harm to students and staff members at the school.

The high school was evacuated twice on Feb. 13 after receiving bomb
threats.

Mr. Sharpton recently announced that he was exploring a run for the
2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

—Michelle R. Davis

Vol. 22, Issue 24, Page 4

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